Eve and the Apple
by Swamp Fairy
Summary: If Penny was Eve, then Seaweed was the apple. Prudy muses on her daughter, and Penny, in turn, muses on her mother. Sadness abound.


**Prudy's thoughts on seeing her daughter and Seaweed together. Enjoy! And the views Prudy expresses are NOT mine, no offense intended!!! Just trying to capture how I imagine she thinks. I own nothing but a labtop and a sleepy puppy.**

Prudy:

She still saw them sometimes. In the market, in the park, even in the newspapers once or twice, after a protest. Laughing, talking, touching... the touching was the worst. Their hands would be tightly intertwined or his arm would be draped casually around her shoulder, hers linked around his waist. She was often with that Tracy Turnblad- another bad one, she should never have allowed them to play together- or that slick-looking TV boy, but it was the filthy black one that made her sick to her stomach.

She had tried to do right by that girl. Tried to teach her right from wrong, good from bad, white from black. She had read her the bible while she was still sleeping in a crib, told her all about the evils of the negroes. That was why He had made them black, to punish them and keep them apart from the chosen ones. After all, what is white? White is innocence. Holiness. Goodness. And what is black? Death. Danger. Evil. And look what she had gotten for all her troubles- a rotten egg of a daughter. Staining herself with their dirty touch.

Once, she had been protesting interracial weddings and that boy raced past her, rooting for the opposite side, pulling the girl behind him. Penny had seen her and stopped for a heart-beat, catching her eye, an odd, sad expression spreading over her face. She had even started to speak, but then _he_ called her name and she chased after him like a well-trained dog. Prudy resolved to pray harder. Pray for her daughter to see the light. The _white _light.

When her husband got home, that boy had better fear for his life. But until then, Penny could find somewhere else to live. She had turned her back on the Lord, and Prudy would turn her back on her. She had no daughter. Not any more. Just memories. Painful memories, of a giggling child. She had always believed that children should be seen and not heard, but Penny had such a beautiful laugh. Now all she had left of that laugh was memories.

Memories of the girl coming to her, crying, with bloody little knees. She had bandaged those scuffed knees and Penny had looked up at her with those beautiful big eyes, full of gratitude and admiration for the mother who could overcome any challenge. Except for the challenge she had never expected, born and bred of her own blood.

Memories of a happy, proud little child, beaming as she showed her mother the poem she had written 'specially' for her on Mothers Day. Swinging her legs, impatient in church... she had always pinched her ear for that. Perhaps it was her fault, for being too soft. She had never _really_ hit her, but maybe she should have. Would that have turned her out all right? Maybe, maybe not. It was certainly too late now.

Memories. Memories. Memories. Laughter and love, sadness and tears. Did _he_ get them now, the happy smiles? He didn't deserve them. She wondered when Penny would come crawling back, robbed and broken, ready to repent. She hoped it would be soon. Loathe as she was to admit it, she sometimes missed her. Not the filthy sinner she had become, but the sweet little girl she used to be.

* * *

Penny:

Yes, it hurt. It hurt worse than anything to see the disgust on her mother's face, hear the rage in her voice, feel the sharp sting of the hand hitting her cheek. But the rejection stung worse than the slap. Prudy was her mother, her home for 17 years. The one who cared for- and _about_- her. No matter what she did, no matter what she believed, she would always have some small part of her heart. But this was bigger than chosing between Seaweed and Prudy, though that was enough. This was about making the right decision before it was too late.

It was wrong, the way the African Americans were treated, and Penny knew that she couldn't live with a such a blatant racist, any more than she could live without Seaweed's smile. Still, it hurt to be looked at as if you were the devil yourself by your own mother. And lately, Penny wasn't so sure that the devil didn't take the form of a middle-class, white, religious woman who called herself mother then held protests against integration.

'Mother' was a simple word, but one more important than most others, and suddenly, locked out of her own house, Penny had realized what a drastic decision she had made. Given up all she knew, for what? For love. For equality. That's what she kept telling herself, but it felt like nothing was going to change and her decision hadn't made any difference. Hadn't made any difference at all.

Sometimes she would forget, start worrying about the time and when her mother would expect her home. Once she even started pulling on her shoes before Tracy asked her where she was going. And then she started crying, of course, and nothing that any of them tried helped her at all. Tracy couldn't help. Link couldn't help. Even Seaweed couldn't help. Because none of them had any clue what she was going through. When the day was done, _their _mothers were there with open arms. And hers wasn't.

She saw her mother once, at a protest for interracial marriage. Her mother was fighting for the other side, reading bible verses allowed. And that was another thing she had lost- her faith in God. In a way, her mother and God had always been connected, irrevocably. But now, nothing made sense, and the rock in the water had been worn down to sand. She was drowning.

But then there would be good days. Days where she had hope that eventually, Inez wouldn't have to take the long way home from her junior high just to avoid the white neighborhood. Days where she had hope that eventually, policemen wouldn't stop Tracy and Motormouth when they were walking together to make sure that Tracy was alright. Days where she had hope that eventually, she and Seaweed could have a future together. A _legal _future.

Those were the days that made everything seem okay again. Seaweed would capture her heart all over again, fill it up to the brim, make her forget the loss of the things she had once held dearest. Because she had made her decision. She had made the right decision. And yes, she could mourn it. But she could not regret it. She would move on.

**So? What didja think? Please, just review and no one gets hurt!**


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